The UX Academy Journey

Step 1

Design 101

(4 weeks, 10-15 hours a week)

Design 101 is a foundation course to prepare you for the main UX Academy curriculum. You’ll be paired with a hand-picked expert mentor, who will help you sharpen up your knowledge of design principles, visual design, and UI design. If you move forward to Step 2, you will receive a $400 credit towards your UX Academy tuition, meaning that you get Design 101 free.

Design 101 Tuition: $399

Step 2

UX Academy

(15 weeks full-time, 28 weeks part-time)

If your Design 101 work meets the admissions requirements, you can begin Step 2—the main UX Academy curriculum. With help and guidance from your mentor, you’ll work through over 480 hours of UX design coursework and projects. By the end, you’ll have completed over 100 hands-on exercises, and built out a portfolio with 4 substantial projects.

UX Academy Tuition: $6,350(after Design 101 credit applied)

Step 3

Career Services

(up to 6 months)

Once you’ve completed UX Academy, it’s time to begin the hunt for your first job in the industry. You’ll be paired with a Career Coach to identify the right job opportunities for you, add extra polish to your portfolio, work on your interview skills together, and launch your new career!

Students have been hired at...

How Mentoring Works

Get 1-on-1 mentoring from an expert designer, and work with your own Career Coach to support your job search

Hand-picked mentors

UX Academy mentors are top designers, hand-picked for their individual professional excellence—and they assess your work from an objective program rubric.

Written feedback

All of the assignments you upload to the Designlab platform will receive written mentor feedback to help you iterate and improve.

1-on-1 calls

Discuss your work in detail each week, and explore bigger questions about design via regular video calls with your mentor.

Quality assured

Our mentors are vetted and go through a rigorous induction process. But if you ever experience difficulties with your mentor, we're here to help.

Community

UX Academy is an online community pursuing design excellence.

Designlab Platform

Upload iterations of your work to our custom-built coursework submission platform, and your mentor and fellow students will leave their comments and feedback.

Slack

Slack is an online collaboration platform where UX Academy students and mentors share learning within and between cohorts.

Group Crits

Facilitated by expert mentors via Zoom, regular Group Crits provide the opportunity for you to present work and get feedback from fellow students.

Student Advocates

Each cohort has its own Student Advocate, who is there to answer your questions about anything from coursework to mentor scheduling, and to relay any issues to Designlab staff.

Alumni Community

Our alumni community is growing by the day, as more and more students complete their course and find work in the industry. Our alumni often stay engaged with UX Academy, sharing experiences and advice with new students.

Blog Posts & Emails

Our in-house content team publishes fresh content on our blog every Monday, and send out regular digests of the best design writing on the web.

Thanks!

Have questions?

We’ve got you covered. Check out the questions below or visit the Help Center for anything else.

What are the prerequisites for UX Academy?

We accept a limited number of students per cohort. The curriculum is intensive and rigorous, so you must demonstrate a firm foundation of basic design skills to be admitted to the course. We will assess the following things before offering you a place:

The standard of either your final Design 101 project, or—if you’re already a practising designer—the visual design work in your portfolio.

Your level of English language skills. UX Academy is collaborative, and requires extensive communication between students, mentors, and the Designlab team.

The level of commitment and motivation you demonstrate when talking about your goals in the UX Academy application.

We don’t require prior academic or industry experience, but you will be best placed to excel in the course if you have a strong background interest in design.

Our most successful students often share the following qualities: passion, discipline, determination, courage, and empathy. These will get you far both in UX Academy, and the design world!

How do I apply to UX Academy?

As a first step, get an information pack for full details on the UX Academy journey. From there, go ahead and submit your application!

I’m interested, but have very little design experience. How can I prepare?

Above all, don’t let a lack of design experience worry you: it’s the most common starting point for UX Academy applicants. We recommend you request an information pack, which will explain the first steps in your journey to becoming a designer. In particular, our Design 101 course—which is a prerequisite for UX Academy—is a primer in design fundamentals, and will prepare you for the program.

Do I still need to take Design 101 if I already have design experience?

To be accepted into UX Academy, you must show that you understand visual design fundamentals, and can apply them to your work. To meet this requirement, most applicants need to take our Design 101 foundation course, which we created to help people gain exactly these skills.

However, you can ask to skip Design 101 if you already have both an online portfolio containing wireframes & high-fidelity mockups, and previous experience in web design, graphic design, UX/UI design, or product design. Please note that print, illustration, and architecture portfolios won’t be considered.

What equipment and software do I need for UX Academy?

Since our courses are focused on applying learning about design fundamentals in digital design projects, we recommend using Sketch or Figma. As well as being user-friendly and easy to learn, they are also cutting-edge, collaborative design tools used by professional UX and UI designers today.

Figma is browser-based, works on any computer, and is free for individual users. Sketch requires a Mac, and you need to buy a license—but you can get 50% off via our Perks page. (Note that you’ll only be able to access the perk once your course has started, so if you’re installing it ahead of time, get started with the trial version and upgrade later.)

To help you get started, you can learn the basics of these packages through our free Sketch 101 and Figma 101 email courses!

Here’s some other software you might be interested in exploring during your course:

As for computer hardware, you can use either Mac or PC. However, note that some packages like Sketch will only work on Mac—and Macs are still the de facto industry standard amongst designers.

For UX Academy, we expect you to have a basic understanding of the design tools listed above before starting the course. You must use an industry-standard design tool like Sketch or Figma, and it’s your responsibility to provide the software you need for the course.

You can check out all of the software discounts and special offers available to Designlab students over on our Perks page. You can also access Adobe software through a Creative Cloud subscription.

One of our goals in UX Academy is to introduce you to a range of industry-standard tools that you'll be using throughout the UX process. We want you to be comfortable picking up new tools and understanding their workflow—this is part of life as a professional UX designer. By the end of the course, you will have a personal toolkit of software that will equip you to solve design problems in the wild.

How does UX Academy compare to short courses?

UX Academy provides the comprehensive training you need for your first job in the industry, and it has more curriculum content than all of our short courses put together. For example, Design 101 includes about 40 hours of coursework; with UX Academy, it’s 480 hours. The program also includes extras like Career Services, which allows you to work with a career coach for up to 6 months to perfect your portfolio, shape high quality job applications, and improve your interview technique.

What if I’ve already taken a course with Designlab?

If you’ve previously taken a Designlab short course, you can get credit towards UX Academy. All students who take Design 101 as a prerequisite for UX Academy receive a $400 credit. For any other short course, the credit is $150 per enrollment.

How do the part-time and full-time tracks work?

At the start of the course, you’ll choose one of our timed “tracks”—either full-time or part-time. Which one is right for you will depend on your other commitments, how quickly you want to complete the course, and how intensively you prefer to work.

The full-time track might be for you if:

you have a schedule clear of other major time commitments

you are highly motivated to complete the course within 3 months

you are experienced and confident at independent learning

The part-time track might be for you if:

you need to balance UX Academy with other commitments, like working a job more than half-time

you are okay with the course taking 6 months

you would prefer to study flexibly and at a slower pace

Choose a track based on your schedule. For the full-time track, you’ll need to be able to commit to spending 40 hours a week on coursework. Our part-time track is designed to be combined with a full time job, and to enable you to complete coursework during evenings and weekends. For the part time option, you should plan to devote 20 hours a week to coursework.

What if I fall behind?

The first thing to say is that UX Academy is, by design, an intensive experience. We want all of our students to succeed and achieve their goals, so remember you’re not alone in figuring this out!

A perk of the online community you’ll have access to is that you’ll be able to share the challenges you’re facing with others in the UX Academy Slack channels to get tips from people who are in the same position.

We’ll send you reminders and resources if you fall behind to help you get back on track. If you decide you can’t keep up with the pace of your track we’ll quickly jump on a call to discuss your options. The most important thing is to always keep us in the loop!

How do your payment plans work?

We offer three tuition options for UX Academy:

Upfront Payment (via PayPal or by credit/debit card)

Extended Payment Plan (serviced by Climb Credit)

6-month Payment Plan ($400 fee, serviced by Designlab)

For all options, admitted students need to make a $399 refundable deposit to save their spot in the program. For upfront payments and payment plans serviced through Designlab, the next payment is due on their cohort's start date.

As an example, a 6-month payment plan serviced by Designlab would look like this:

$7,149 (total tuition, including service fee) – $399 (deposit) = $6,750 (balance), split into 6 payments of $1125 with the first payment due on the cohort start date.

If you take Design 101 first, we’ll apply a $400 credit by subtracting it from the balance before calculating your next payment(s).

What kind of jobs will I be ready for when I’m done?

UX Academy will prepare you for your first position as a professional designer capable of taking on a range of UX and UI design work. Students who have completed our programme in recent months have gone on to jobs in UI, UX, and product design at companies including Adidas, TechStyle Fashion Group, Eved, Backbase, Comrade Agency, and Microsoft. To find out more, check out our UX Academy Success Stories.

Will companies hire me without a design degree?

Yes. Design is a fast-moving industry, with standards, tools, and market needs changing every year. Your portfolio is the primary point of reference for employers looking for evidence that you have the skills for the job. With UX design in particular, college courses often lag behind the industry. UX Academy’s curriculum will equip you with up-to-date, relevant UX design skills that hiring managers are looking for. If you’re unsure, check out our UX Academy Success Stories. from students who have landed high-paying positions.

Will you help me to find a job?

Yes. As part of UX Academy you will have access to Career Services, a 6-month program where we help guide you through your job search. Once you pass your portfolio review, you’ll have a well-rounded set of skills, the ability to use new tools, and a solid portfolio that showcases your background and work.

During Career Services, you will transition from your regular mentor to a Career Coach who will help with your portfolio, job applications, and interview technique. These coaches either have hiring experience in their backgrounds, or they’ve had a really fantastic track record with getting jobs at different well known companies.